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Also, did anyone else feel creeped out a when one of Clay's miners chuckled after saying "My boss's pokémon are all extremely powerful" to Ash?

Sure did. 0_o Honestly, for a moment, I was worried that something bad was gonna happen.

Anyway, I enjoyed this episode more than I thought I would. I like the gym leader episodes a lot more in BW than I did in past seasons.

Things started out nice and ominous with that psycho guy leading them to the gym, and the battle got started quickly. I like how they’ve retained the gym gimmicks from the games. I instantly sympathized with Ash after the wisecrack about him using cute Pokémon—I love cute Pokémon, and I tore through Clay with unevolved ones! (Hooray for Snivy!)

Ash’s come-from-behind victories often seem contrived, but I thought the writers did a good job with Oshawott versus Krokorok... if I spelled that right. Ash’s strategy was interesting, and it was particularly smart to squirt into the hole Krok dug. That part of the battle was this episode’s highlight for me.

But Ash was stupid to keep on battling with Oshawott. It was nice to see Snivy rip through Palpitoad: my Snivy did the exact same in Clay’s gym a lot. Clay sure was mean when he lost fair and square to Ash’s strategy.

The Excadrill battle... wasn’t very impressive to me. First off, the fact that Clay mentioned how much he’s done with Excadrill only highlighted how odd it is that gym leaders lose if they’re going full-force. Second off, I thought Ash just got lucky with the evolution: he basically had Roggenrola be nothing more than target practice. Oh well. At least Boldore “hugging” Ash at the end was funny and cute.

This was a great Gym battle. Ash was actually very competent, which is a stark contrast to his behaviour during Elesa's Gym battle. It's a shame this series is often inconsistent. The evolution animation was impressive.

Somehow the beginning of this episode felt creepily drawn out with the mine workers. Like, suuuuper long unecessary mine shaft ride..Or maybe I was just sick of being teased of the Driftveil City Gym Battle...Qwaa

My favorite part of this episode was definitely where Clay got mad at Ash and accused him of sneaky tactics. I'd argue that Ash was battling fair and square, but Clay's reaction was still funny. It's also interesting that all of Clay's pokemon were ones either owned by a twerp (palpitoad and excadril) or about to be owned (krokorok).

The Excadrill battle... wasn’t very impressive to me. First off, the fact that Clay mentioned how much he’s done with Excadrill only highlighted how odd it is that gym leaders lose if they’re going full-force. Second off, I thought Ash just got lucky with the evolution: he basically had Roggenrola be nothing more than target practice. Oh well. At least Boldore “hugging” Ash at the end was funny and cute.

I was thinking the same thing as well when I saw the Excadrill battle vs. Roggenrola, but then I realized something when I saw what happened after Horn Drill. Even when it made direct contact, Roggenrola didn't go down at all, and normally, Horn Drill only works if the user is at a higher or equal level, so this meant one of two things. Either the old mechanics of Sturdy kicked in (which I doubt), or Roggenrola was already at a higher level than Excadrill to begin with.

Oshawott vs. Krokorok was a good battle. Ash was very competent and intelligent here. Snivy vs. Palpitoad wasn't bad since it finally showed Attract working in a battle again. It was a good battle... until Ash sent out Roggenrola against Excadrill.

That ruined it for me, since Roggenrola had not battled or trained a single time prior to this episode and he expected it to win against a fully evolved ground/steel type Pokemon. Roggenrola was hit with multiple Drill Runs and then Horn Drill and instead of fainting to the Drill Runs like it should have it just evolves (when it didn't have enough experience to), learns a super effective move(wow so convenient) and wins.

The writers were doing well until then. Boldore should not have taken so many hits and survived. >_>